A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

68 A history of Inner Asia
for almost a century under the domination of Tang China, its petty
monarchs being beholden to the authority of the governor residing at
Kucha.The tentacles of Chinese power now began to probe the territory
to the west as well, and the rulers of Tashkent and Fergana appear
to have been among the vassals of the Tang.The former carried the
Turkic title chabish, the latter the Iranian title ikhshid, possibly a reflection
of their ethnolinguistic background.Like them, the nomadic Türgesh
too recognized Tang suzerainty.In 750 there erupted a quarrel between
the chabish and the ikhshid, with the Türgesh taking part as the allies of
the chabish.The ikhshid requested help from the Chinese.The emperor
instructed Kao Hsien-chih, the governor of Sinkiang, to intervene, and
despite the fact that the king of Tashkent had submitted, the city was
sacked and the chabish – together with the qaghan of the Türgesh – led
away as prisoner.Eventually he was executed in Changan, while Kao
Hsien-chih was rewarded.Meanwhile, however, the chabish’s son had
fled to Samarkand and appealed to Ziyad ibn Salih, the aforementioned
governor, for help.Ziyad asked Abu Muslim for reinforcements, and by
next summer, 751, was ready to take on the Chinese.Kao Hsien-chih
marched in with his troops and Qarluq auxiliaries as well as a contingent
from Fergana.As the two adversaries met in battle at the end of July
near Taraz, the Qarluq switched sides.The Chinese were crushed, and
Kao Hsien-chih barely escaped.
The Arabs’ victory had more lasting and far-reaching consequences
than this relatively obscure battle seemed to promise, for China never
again ventured to claim mastery over territories beyond Sinkiang – with
minor exceptions during the rule of the last dynasty to rule China, that
of the Ching (Manchus), as we shall relate in due course.The effect of
the Arab victory was heightened by the opportune time at which it
occurred.The Islamic empire had just emerged from a civil war that
brought to power the Abbasid dynasty, whereas China was on the
threshold of an upheaval that would come close to destroying the Tang
dynasty.Moreover, not only were the Abbasids at the peak of their
youthful vigor, but their outlook had a more eastern orientation than
that of the Umayyads.Besides the obvious factor of the location of their
capital, Baghdad, this meant that a greater role was played by non-Arab
Muslim converts from the eastern marches of the empire, both at its
center and in the provinces, especially the Central Asian ones.These
converts were chiefly Iranians (Persians, Sogdians, Khwarazmians,
Tokharistanians) and Turks.Thus after the brief Arab interlude, the
main actors in the history of Central Asia would soon again be members